Why me, Lord?

Dr. Cargill has responded to the current string of posts regarding the dismissal of Scholarship based on the (non/lack of, almost) supernatural views of the person who holds them. As I have posted several times, I struggled with accepting scholarship from a Seventh-Day Adventist even though I used LDS scholarship, both groups considered at the very least heterodox by orthodox Christians.

My good friend, Dr. Jim West — who is one of the most warmest souls to have met in person, who has always been there to give me advice, help, and a shoulder to cry on and I could go on (I mean, Jim has practically forced me to read Bultmann, Zwingli, and to consider minimalism as a valid Christian undertaking) — has (non-)responded. But the problem I have with this and it is one I’ve struggled with how to say it for the past few hours is that this is ALMOST THE EXACT SAME THING, at least in the same mold, AS LITTLE HONEY TEE TEE SAYS.

Zwingli on the bronze doors by Otto Münch (1935) on the Grossmünster in Zürich, Switzerland. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

No, I am not going to post links to the — what is the polite way of saying heretical little idiot devoid of any ounce either of Christianity or knowledge and so far away from any type of truth that it would be impossible for him to learn even the must rudimentary of syllables to say “truth”? — guy’s (who had to leave the U.S. for South Korea before he was arrested) blog. But within the last few days, TT has “written” posts suggests that only those truly born again (John 3, you know, the one with Holy Spirit) can know what truth is, etc… Also, he thinks Augustine is an atheist. An atheist!

As I have written several times, I view the Spirit in John 14-16 as the Spirit that guides us into all truth. This is the allowance for doctrinal development, progression, or correction as well as science, sociological advancement and the like. This is the same spirit Justin believed inhabited the Greek Philosophers before him, a belief Luther reports as shared by Zwingli:

After three days of hotly debating with Martin Luther in Marburg the nature of the Eucharist, Huldreich Zwingli, the Swiss Reformer, gripped Luther’s hands and said: “Here we’re fighting. Doctor Martinus, but, thank God, one nice day we both will be dead and then in Heaven we shall know the Truth, walking with the great sages, with Socrates, Plato, Aristotle . . .”

“Doctor Zwingli,” Luther interrupted him rudely, “They were pagans; they were not baptized; they are roasting in the everlasting fires of Hell.”

“But they were good men, were virtuous and followed their consciences.”

“If you talk like this, you’re not a Christian—and I regret to have wasted my time with you,” Luther snapped back.

Perhaps I am but a novice, without a phd to my name yet, but if Zwingli and Justin before him can allow pagans, philosophers, and others to have the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead guide them and their work (i.e., Scholarship), I won’t pretend that it gives me some super-secret revelation and thus validates my Scholarship.

I fully expect to be defriended for this post, but alas, here I stand. I can do no other.

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Joel L. Watts holds a MA in Theological Studies from United Theological Seminary. He is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of the Free State, analyzing Paul’s model of atonement in Galatians, as well as seeking an MA in Clinical Mental Health at Adams State University. He is the author of Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark: Introduction and Commentary (Wipf and Stock, 2013), a co-editor and contributor to From Fear to Faith: Stories of Hitting Spiritual Walls (Energion, 2013), and Praying in God's Theater, Meditations on the Book of Revelation (Wipf and Stock, 2014).

However, I got defriended for linking to Dr. Cargill’s post, and pointing out that West ignoring Cargill’s critique and fideistic argument is probably the laziest and least convincing counter-argument I have seen.

That’s all right with me though, if someone needs to defriend me because I think we should treat human beings with dignity and equality, somehow… some way… my life will go on.